This is an open board. Nothing super secretive, excepting the secret soci*((mmfph- okay, I won’t tell!))*, erm, let’s just say it’s a board that any chimp has access to.
But I won’t tell my friends and family about it. I can’t. I’ve written some pretty nasty, although (at the time) heartfelt things about them. If they do a search, I’m screwed.
I’ve tried to live with the guilt. Really I have. I have e-mailed friends partial posts, but not links. I will verbally relate a thread. But not give the url. I just call it the Dope, and leave it at that.
Why do I do this? Does anyone else do this? Is there a solution? Other than not venting, I mean?
At times in the past, I have posted with vitriol, ridiculosity, stupidity and inaneness. I have posted drunk, disorderly, deranged, disenfranchised and despondent.
Frankly, I want people I know to know information that I’ve told them personally. And if you knew me (and probably you) well enough, a few key words would bring up some posts that would eventually point to me.
So when quoting something on the board, I quote. No links. No names. I refer to it as “a message board that I frequent.” Inane? Perhaps. Necessary for self-protection. Absolutely!
I changed my user name from one that is known in a couple of on-line gaming circles, to one that no one knows. My close friends will still be able to ID me from content, but more casual friends won’t.
In my case, this is not about guilt, but about being able to post without embaressment. (My close friends know all this stuff, so hiding it would do no good).
Not many people know I post here, or under what name, which is how I like it.
I’d hate to have to explain the Dope while I’m jetting around the world filming my latest movie, Ocean’s 12, going to Matt’s premiere of the Bourne Identity, or riding my Harley around the lake. I like to remain anonymous, ya’ know.
I searched Google using “dope boards” and this came up
Similar pages The Straight Dope - Big Boards
You were trying to access the message boards of The Straight Dope at
the following url: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/. Forum … Loading... - 3k - Cached - Similar pages
OK so I tried the search with just the word “dope”
and got this- listed 2nd and 3rd
The Straight Dope Front Page
… Here you will find all manner of things relating to the column and the vast
Straight Dope media empire. Join the Straight Dope mailing list! … www.straightdope.com/ - 15k - Jul 18, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages
The Straight Dope Archive: Gateway
Welcome to the Straight Dope archives! Text to Search For: Advanced Search. … A
sampling of Straight Dope Classics. The Straight Dope (1984). … www.straightdope.com/columns/ - 101k - Jul 18, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.straightdope.com ]
Ya might want to be more a little more vague in the future
I’ve directed various online friends here over the past year and a half but I’ve only give the URL to maybe one or two people in everyday life. I’m not sure why I feel comfortable with the former and not the latter as I normally don’t care to seperate my online and offline lives but it just feels weird somehow.
I’d feel really weird telling anyone I was a member of a message board! I don’t know why, exactly…I guess I’m the only person I know who’s cool enough to come here.
I’d like to meet some of y’all one day, but what would I tell family and friends? “Sorry I won’t be around this weekend, I’m going to hang out with some people I met on the Internet. No, I don’t know their real names!”
Or what if they ask me what I call myself here? Embarrassing.
I haven’t told anyone IRL about this place, really… Not out of guilt though – I can’t say I’ve written anything horrible about anyone here, I think. I haven’t told anyone because it’s mine. It’s a place where I don’t have to deal with the people I actually hang out with. I don’t want my friends and family to know about this place because it’s too good for them. When I went to the recent Gettysburg Dopefest, I told my dad I was going to a picnic “with some people I know” and was very vague about the whole thing. If I want to talk about something from here, I refer to it as “this message board I spend way too much time at.”
In the DopeLunches I’ve attended, I’ve just said “Oh, with people I know” and try to leave it at that. Of course, with my Mom, nothing is simple. She pretty much wants the CV on every person I come into contact with. I then lied. Flat out lied. “People from work, Ma”. Why that’s safer, I don’t know.
(Yes, I am 35. Yes, my Mom is a tad overprotective. Yes, it IS sad)
CWN, that would require effort on their behalf, which I don’t believe they have enough of. I’m the “weird” one of the group. I was trying to explain one of Rue’s MMPs, laughing through tears-- my sister just sat there. Confused. “I don’t think that’s funny”. She’s a stitch, I tell ya. But that fear is still there. That she’ll decide to see what this place is like. And that she would stay. shudder
I don’t share any of my message boards, not from guilt, but because I’m more…open…here than I’d like my friends and family to see me being. My husband doesn’t want to share ANYTHING with a bunch of “strangers.”
I haven’t posted anything on the boards that my closest friends and family don’t already know, including my wacky, freaky fetish stuff. I share threads often, and my best friend reads here enough to know board culture. Googling my handle gets me pretty easily.
I’ve pointed my mom here (specifically to the boards, not just the articles), but I think she finds it a bit overwhelming.
While I post very explicit things about myself, and occasionally about my job, I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything hurtful or nasty about someone I know in real life. Plus, I tend to be a very open, TMI kind of girl anyhow. Plus, I’m an attention whore.
I work in small shop as a driver but open the office up at 7am. The office crew shows up about 7:45 or 8 my job is to just handle the phones or help customers
(of which are very few) so I spend most of the time on the SDMD on someones elses computer.One day a coworker comes in and sees me onlne and says OH the Straight dope, we all became addicted to it since we found it on the computer you use! Fighting ignorance every way I can
I whore this board extensively IRL and to other online friends… I know I’ve told my username to a few at least…
my dad’s also a member here (hell, he introduced me to it), and knows my username…
and I just posted a thread about my sex life. stuff I’d never tell ANY of my RL friends, or family. implodes
…eh. I count on my friends all being too lazy to even visit, and my dad being too cracked-out on Star Wars: Galaxies to search through shit I’ve said. (he’s never really been that kinda dad anyway glomps dad =D)
Ditto what’s been said about this being a personal space for me, feeling free to rant and share TMI but still remain anonymous.
Besides all that, it just sounds really nerdy to say “there’s this message board!” and people look at you like you have 3 heads… but then you’re like “No, really! I’ve found the spot where the smartest, coolest people in the world talk about stuff!”
Them: “Mmm, yeah… right” :dubious:
They just don’t get it.
I tried for a while to get other people into the boards. I kept prefacing stories with, “On this message board I read…” and eventually friends started asking me which one. Nobody’s gotten on it, yet, or at least as far as I know. I don’t think I’ve written anything on here that I need to keep secret.
I was showing a cow-orker a thread I was in the middle of one day, and he said, “Straight Dope? Is this some kind of gay message board or something?” I had to tell him, “No, not officially…”
I’ve pointed my Mom and one or two of my brothers here, anyone who doesn’t like what I have to say about them will just have to change No, really I can’t think of anything I’ve said that would be a big secret, my family consist of nuts and we’re proud of it damnit.
I used to try to get people to join, but no one would, not even when it was free, so I gave that up.
Last fall I made the mistake of telling someone about the board in passing, expecting him to be too lazy to check it out, like everyone else IRL I ever mentioned it to. I was wrong about his energy levels, and then when I fell out of favor, it was not a good thing that he was able to search and pull up posts from my past.
I try not to make that mistake anymore - I may mention that I belong to a message board, but don’t say much else besides, especially not my user name. I am glad that only charter members can search. I don’t see anyone joining just to keep tabs on my posts, and I lurk more than I post anyhow, but I still am quite uncomfortable not being anonymous.
Hey, not just any chimp! It takes a chimp with five dollars and a credit card.
Anyway, this chimp tends to keep the SDMB under wraps, unless I’m talking to Mrs. Giraffe who probably has to listen to ten stories a day which start with “so there was this thread on the SDMB…”
When I was younger, I wanted to go to a Dopefest, but my mom had just watched an Oprah about how everyone on the internet is a sick child molesting serial killer, so it didn’t really fly.
Ever since then, I’ve been going out with friends from work. It’s not *
